Violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar does not stop increasing. As time goes by, cases of violence just multiply amongst these two religions. However, as it is known, these two creeds have different realities as while Buddhism is the religion of the majority and it has protection from the authorities, Islam is practiced by a minority of one million people that is located almost entirely in Rakhine State, which is such a poor state of three million people in the very South of Myanmar, close to Bangladesh border. This week, and afterwards a group of Rohingya, (the main Muslim group within Myanmar) attacked three police posts last 9th of October, Myanmar army has “counter attacked” by driving no fewer than 2.000 Rohingyas out of their homes and by raping children and women in Rakhine as Reuters[1] points out.

The apparent reason to be of this matter is Myanmar non-Muslim population do not tolerate Muslims and its way of life and there is a common thought between people that see Muslims as dirty and former immigrants coming from other countries. It is so that Muslims do not have any kind of civil right, not even citizenship, and most of them are confined in ghettos to live. According to The Diplomat[2], this situation had its beginning in 1970, when Myanmar Defenses Services (MDS) carried out a huge military offensive in Rakhine State making the displacement of more than 250.000 refugees, what pushed the Buddhist and Muslim nationalisms to surface.

But furthermore these people´s feeling, The Diplomat establishes treating Muslims this way and connecting them to international Jihadism mainly benefits the armed forces as these two may be used to divert attention from their own failures or as a way to achieve support from other countries against terrorism. Thus, as Reuters[3] more accurately highlights, it is not the proper Government but the armed forces (MDS) which is in control of all military operations and which use Muslims as a way to keep its power. Then, armed forces still has power enough to act by themselves, a power that comes from the times when army ruled Myanmar and, even when it ended up on 2016, some of that power remains on the army as it is still in control of all ministries related to security.

The future does not seem pleasant to Muslims in Myanmar as no actor can today go against armed forces interest. In fact, Myanmar shadow Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi efforts to overthrown army from power are still far away from achieving any goal. Thus, violence against Muslims is going to continue as long as people behavior towards them keeps same way or MDS maintain this huge power at least until an external actor enters the system. However, that actor could probably be real jihadism and that would convert the army lies into the truth.